


All Hallow's Eve Spirit

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Children, Death, F/M, Family, Gen, Grief, Haunting, Holiday, Loss, M/M, Politics, Provost's Dog, References to War, Sports of the Dead, all hallow's eve, references to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 14:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16369442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: The spirits of the dead haunt Nestor on All Hallow's Eve.





	All Hallow's Eve Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Mastiff during the civil wars that break out in Tortall after King Roger frees the slaves.

All Hallow’s Eve Spirit

“If any of the children take more than one treat, I’ll hobble them for theft.” Nestor scowled as he watched Okha prepare a basket of spiced Carthaki cakes for the neighborhood children who would run from door to door after sunset, pretending to be fleeing from the evil spirits that supposedly haunted the Port Caynn streets on All Hallow’s Eve but truly seeking sweets. The squealing and shouting on All Hallow’s Eve had once been music to his ears but now it broke his heart, reminding him of the boy he and Okha had adopted as a son. The scapegrace who had darted so deftly through the city alleys and sewers. Haden whom he had loved and lost to the civil wars that had torn through Tortall following King Roger’s proclamation liberating the country’s slaves. 

“Shut your gob.” Okha rapped his knuckles with a wooden spoon as if he were a troublesome lad like Haden had once been. “You always get tetchy on All Hallow’s Eve since you won’t accept Haden’s in the Peaceful Realms where there’s no more war now.” 

Okha was right that Nestor always got irritable on All Hallow’s Eve because when the air blowing off the Emerald Ocean became crisp, whipping autumn apples into everyone’s cheeks, and the rotting leaves began to fall, Nestor would recall how Haden had marched off to war two days after All Hallow’s Eve. 

He had looked so proud in the army uniform Truda had straightened for him but a month later, a curt clerk’s letter had come to Nestor’s kennel informing him that Haden had been killed by a rebel’s arrow somewhere near Lake Naxen. The wound hadn’t been fatal and could have been cured by a decent healer but a decent healer wasn’t available to a street urchin who joined the king’s army. He had died in some grim army camp by gloomy, gray Lake Naxen and been buried in a mass soldiers’ grave in strange soil. 

On All Hallow’s Eve when the veil separating the living from the dead was said by the Black God’s dark priests to be at its thinnest, Nestor felt especially close to Haden’s spirit. He would remember with the clarity of the bells that had pealed when Haden had went off to war with a hundred nameless others Haden’s final All Hallow’s Eve with the family where he had commented with what had become to Nestor uncanny prescience that this would be his last holiday with his family for a long time…

“I can’t accept that he’s at peace because died in a war that doesn’t seem to be worth his life and never ends.” Nestor pinched the bridge of his nose. Every couple of years, there would be some half-hearted effort at negotiation between the king and the nobles that opposed him, but it would always end in betrayal and renewed animosity—never peace. 

Once, in what felt like a distant past, Nestor had wanted to see Tortall’s slaves freed but not at the expense of so many young lives budding with forever untapped potential like Haden’s. The king, Nestor often thought bitterly, had made his great change, and the rest of the country had to die for it, since it was never kings who suffered and sacrificed for their reforms. Life was a chessboard to them while it was heartbreak to everybody else. King Roger should have stuck to his hunting and ribald affairs with the powdered court ladies who had been his paramours during his marriage to Queen Alysy instead of trying to change the world too fast and leaving a legacy of a realm ripped asunder. 

“You speak treason, cracknob.” Okha’s eyes were wide with worry. “Do you want to hang for a traitor?” 

It was easy to hang for a traitor for any stray seditious statement in Port Caynn these days. Port Caynn was occupied by the king’s troops, and even Nestor’s history as a Dog wouldn’t prevent him from a trip to the gibbets if he was accused of disloyalty to the war effort. The war effort must be supported unquestioningly at all costs. The Crown would continued to demand everything from him even after all his thankless toil as a Dog and after he had lost the only son he would ever have fighting for the king they were supposed to call the Liberator instead of Randy Roger now. 

“Happy All Hallow’s Eve then.” Nestor pecked Okha on the cheek, trying not to think of how that gesture had once been what marked him as a bardash to Haden, who had taken some encouragement not to bolt from the house with his little sister in fear of Nestor and Okha’s love. “We won’t think of the dead or how many of the children who beg for treats at our doorstep will be buried in nameless graves before this wretched civil war ends.”


End file.
